


if you go there

by plingo_kat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Marvel RarePair Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 09:26:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2145537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark and stormy night, ruined leather jackets, hot chocolate, and really bad boner jokes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you go there

**Author's Note:**

  * For [surgicalstainless](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/gifts).



> For [z-delenda-est](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com/) over at tumblr for the [marvel rare pair exchange](marvelrarepairexchange.tumblr.com)! Your prompts were super cute, and I hope I delivered!
> 
>  
> 
> Sorry there wasn't more blatant shipping going on, but I saw that you were okay with ace and then I was like "platonic ca:ws 4tp!" and yeah.

Sam doesn’t hear from Steve for a solid two months before he shows up at Sam’s door. It’s raining, and Steve’s leather jacket will be pretty much ruined. Only the jacket isn’t on Steve, it’s covering the head of the Winter Soldier.

“You don’t call, you don’t write,” Sam says after he fetches a couple of towels. Steve has stripped to his skivvies so he doesn’t track water into the house, but the Winter Soldier is still fully clothed. And dripping. “It’s enough to make a guy feel unwanted.”

“Sorry, Sam,” Steve emerges from the towel with a truly appalling case of towel-hair. “I was busy looking for Bucky, and then when I found him…”

Sam looks at the Winter Soldier. 

“I can see how you might have had other things on your mind, yeah,” Sam says. Honestly, he’s amazed the Winter Soldier – Bucky, his name is Bucky – even allowed Steve to bring them here. He’s amazed that they’re not holed up in Steve’s apartment, or (even more likely) some random safe house in another city.

“You want something warm to drink? I think I’ve got some hot chocolate lying around somewhere.”

“Please,” Steve sighs. He touches Bucky on his metal shoulder, fleetingly.

“Sure,” Sam says. “I’ll grab you some clothes, too.”

Steve nods his thanks when Sam comes back into the hallway with some sweats and t-shirts. Bucky is still standing exactly where he’s been since he stepped inside, Steve’s jacket hanging from his fingers. Sam leaves them to it.

It isn’t until he’s ghosting his fingers over ceramic to check if the mugs are too hot to hold that he realizes: Steve touched Bucky’s arm to see if it was too cold, the metal prosthetic leeching body heat. Sam wonders if that’s often a problem. He wonders what it was like for Bucky in Russia in the snow, underground in the damp, on high buildings with the wind whipping past. 

“All right,” Sam calls when he’s done stirring the cocoa powder in. “Chocolate’s ready, come on in.”

“Just a minute,” Steve’s voice floats back, so Sam putters around the kitchen, pulling milk out of the fridge and sugar off a shelf. He unearths a pack of Girl Scout cookies, only a month old, and decides that now is a good of a time as any to eat them. Shortbread tastes good dipped in chocolate.

When Bucky trails into the room behind Steve, Sam chokes a little on his sip of hot chocolate. The merciless soldier, the relentless assassin… looks _cute_. He’s in sweatpants a little bit too long, the bottoms scrunched up by his ankles, and yeah he fills out the tee nicely, but he’s got a _towel_ wrapped around his _head_ to contain his wet hair and it’s. Just.

“Holy shit,” Sam coughs. He stares deliberately at Steve. “Are you gonna bust out of that shirt like the Hulk if you raise your arms above your shoulders? Because that’s one of my old Air Force tees, and I’d kind of like to keep it in one piece.”

Steve ducks his head and blushes a little; Bucky bristles and steps closer.

“Sorry,” Steve says. He begins to shrug and then thinks better of it. “I’ll be careful. And I can mend it if I do rip it.”

Crap, that actually makes Sam feel guilty for ragging on him.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pats the chair next to him. “Come on, sit. You too,” he directs to the Win—Bucky.

“You want any milk in yours?”

“Please,” Bucky says, and Sam’s eyebrows shoot up. It sounds like he’s been gargling gravel, his throat’s so torn up.

“You sick?” Sam says. “You don’t sound so hot. I got some Tylenol in a drawer around here somewhere, if you want it.”

Bucky shakes his head and flips off the cap of the milk jug with his metal hand, which is _fascinating_ \-- what some of his boys couldn’t do with a prosthetic that good – and pours until his mug is filled to the brim. He pours some milk in Steve’s cup too, without any prompting; he seems to know exactly how Steve drinks his hot chocolate.

“It’s pretty hard for us to get sick,” Steve explains. “We’re just tired. Can we take over your guest room tonight, Sam? Sorry to intrude.”

“Hey, that’s what I have it for.” Sam waves a hand. “If you guys want a shower, I can grab some towels. And some extra pillows and blankets.”

“Thanks,” Steve smiles.

Sam has to smile back.

 

The next morning when Sam steps into his kitchen wearing boxers and an undershirt, he finds three people sitting at the table.

“…Hi, Natasha,” he says, and makes a beeline for the fridge and orange juice.

“Morning,” Natasha purrs. She’s eating Honey Nut Cheerios in milk. Steve has a plate of eggs in front of him; Bucky has oatmeal, but it looks like he’s been stealing from Steve’s plate.

“So when did you get here?” Sam says. He grabs a glass from the cupboard. “ _How_ did you know to come here?”

Natasha shrugs. “I heard the Captain was back in town. Wanted to see if he found what he was looking for.”

Sam looks at Steve, who’s watching Bucky stare intently at his oatmeal with a sort of melting sappy expression, all quirked mouth and soft eyes.

“Seems like it,” Sam says, and takes a swig of orange juice.

“We can hear you,” Steve says mildly, still not taking his eyes off Bucky.

“We know,” Sam says.

“Just wanted to make sure you weren’t making a…” he pauses. “Mistake.”

Bucky takes the opportunity to take another forkful of Steve’s eggs in a lightning fast strike, which is totally unnecessary because Steve isn’t even trying to defend his food.

“Boner,” he says in his chewing-gravel voice. “You were going to say boner, weren’t you. Geez, you still have the _worst_ sense of humor.”

At this point Sam has snorted orange juice up his nose and is trying not to die over the sink because that shit _burns_. Natasha is frozen, spoon full of cereal hanging suspended and dripping in the air.

Steve has a slow grin growing over his face. 

“You gonna help me out with my boner, Buck?” he says.

“Punk,” Bucky says, but his eyes are starting to crinkle in the corners, lips twitching, and suddenly Sam can see the man he was, Steve’s best friend.

“Gonna help me pull my—“

“The _worst_ ,” Bucky says, louder than Steve.

“—out of my mouth?” Steve says, and he’s blushing a little now, but he’s laughing too, and Bucky tries to glare but his eyebrows keep arching up and he keeps smiling, and after a bit of that he begins to laugh too, a low rasping chuckle.

Steve beams.

Sam is grinning now too, helpless in the face of their mirth. His eyes are still wide though, and he shares a glace with Natasha: _Did you know Steve told dirty, kind of homoerotic jokes with his best friend from the forties? No? Okay._

This, Sam decides, is going to be all kinds of interesting.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from the saying “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in” which in my mind I attribute to the Vorkosigan series but is actually from Robert Frost's _The Death of the Hired Man_.


End file.
